Resiliency techniques: Understanding yourself
Another update from one of the Soldiers participating in this week’s Master Resiliency Training at the University of Pennsylvania. A key component of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program, Master Resiliency Trainers are individuals with upcoming deployments and leadership assignments, who are learning new skills and tools to lead their Soldiers and care for their overall wellness.
Major James Hayes, Student, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth Kan.
Day 2-3 Reflections:
We spent the last two days establishing a base for understanding resiliency while focusing the techniques on ourselves. The belief is that we must be able to personally use the resiliency steps on ourselves before we can be expected to return to our units as effective trainers.
Overall, I believe the resiliency techniques being taught are useful, but there is a great amount of information that must be practiced to maintain the effectiveness. Comments from NCOs around me remain mostly positive with most of the concerns involving their application of the techniques in a training environment. As with any battle drill or SOP, it must be practiced to be internalized. We are still in the early phases of the course with more to follow on teaching techniques and expect take home materials to be covered next week.
I believe the program has enormous potential, but I continue to see a major challenge getting buy-in from commanders at various levels. Based on my understanding at this time, there is no formal Army policy requiring, regulating, or mandating the implementation of the resiliency program at the unit level although I know that portions are being taught in Army schools at various levels. The most basic way to integrate the program is during counseling, which provides yet another avenue to better know our Soldiers. If the program receives the sufficient level of emphasis, I foresee tremendous benefit for our Soldiers as we compliment our physical fitness with mental strength and agility.
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